Literature
The Barren Nothing-Place
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On growing up in the creases of bilingual versions of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
Needle & pen
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Jane Austen valued fashion as an intrinsic part of one’s character — whether in her own life or in a novel.
The Mothers Grimm
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What ties Gretel to her witch? Louise Glück’s poem Gretel in Darkness provides answers.
The size of longing
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On Jacob Israël de Haan’s Palestine and Arnold Zweig’s novel of post‑Zionist disillusionment
Ice queens, sex machines
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Insofar as erotica can ever be about something, what is Russia-themed erotica about?
Cannibalinguistics
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Language-learning and people-eating in Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s The Centre.
What an animal isn’t
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Two vastly different books — one a picaresque tale, the other a dystopian meditation — both recount a transition from human to animal or from animal to human.
« Everything starts with fire » — Interview with Hélène Cixous
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« The smell was like the sharp notes of a trumpet, a sort of rat-tat-tat like a burst of gunfire, a bombardment. »
From the knacker’s yard
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On the fallen animals loved by Heinrich von Kleist & Curzio Malaparte.
Forget your darlings
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On memory palaces, medieval and modern. A medieval woman’s life would not have taken the form of a straight line.